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A Short History, and Facts on 

"The Park Commission Plans" 

(Fourth edition, March, 1916) 

y f ,^ -p n Prepared by 

The Committee of One Hundred on the Development 

of Washington 



In 1896 the Public Art League was organized for the sole pur- 
pose of having the Government create a Fine Arts Commission for 
the future development of Washington along the original plans of 
L'Enfant, who was employed by George Washington and Thomas 
Jefferson in 1789 to plan the Nation's future Capital, the only city in 
the world ever planned before its construction and even today con- 
ceded by all Nations the best planned city. 

In 1899 the Washington Board of Trade offered suggestions to 
Congress concerning the development of Washington (Park Improve- 
ment Papers of the District of Columbia, Public Document No. 1). 
The same year, through the Public Art League, the American Institute 
of Architects i organized a convention and were requested to present 
suggestions on the development of Washington. (Senate No. 94, 56th 
Congress, 2d session.) 

In 1900 the celebration of the National Capital Centennial went 
far to educate the people of the country as to the future of their 
Capital. As a permanent memorial a park development plan was de- 
sired. (Public Document No. 136, March 3d, 1901.) 

In 1901 the Senate authorized a Commission composed of D. H. 
Burnham, Charles F. McKim, Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Frederick 
Law Olmsted to study plans for the development of Washington. 
(Senate report 160, 57th Congress, 1st session.) 

1902. The result of this Commission was the Park Com- 
mission Report, recommending a return to the original L'Enfant plans 
and advising that that part of the District not shown in the L'Enfant 
plans be developed in harmony with them, was presented to and 
accepted by the Senate. (The Improvements of the Park System of 
the D. C, 57th Congress, 1st session, Senate report 166.) 

Note is here made that upon research it will be found that the 
Park Commission Plans for the development of Washington are 
the result of careful study and an epitome of the best of the many 
plans and able suggestions that have been offered from time to time 
to the Government and offer to the Nation's Capital a tangible, econom- 
ical system for the location of its public buildings, bridges, statuary, 
highways, neighborhood parks, and a practical solution of the connect- 
ing of Potomac Park, National Zoological Park, Rock Creek Park, 
Soldiers' Home Park, and what will soon be Anacostia Park, the 
War College, the Mall and Arlington, through a system of smaller 
parks, drives and bridges. 



.A I W^iS" 

IJ^^The idea is not to accomplish all this in one decade, but if the 
Nation wishes its Capital ultimately to become the most beautiful city 
in the world, tJicn a plan is as necessary for its accomplishment as a 
plan is to the man who would build a home, a machine, or lay out a 
garden. 

1903-1907. The Park Commission Plans were devised by mor- 
tals and it is not contended that they are infallible or that from 
time to time minor changes should not be made in them, under the 
expert advice of the National Commission of Fine Arts, but it is 
contended that future Washington depends materially on these plans 
and it is hoped that the House of Representatives will some day, in 
principle or in spirit, approve them as the Senate has done. It will 
then no longer he necessary for local and national organizations, so- 
cieties, and public spirited individuals to join in a movement, as was 
done during the years 1903 to 1907, to stop what they thought to be, 
though an honest, yet an unwise expenditure of public moneys by the 
location of parks, public buildings, and statuary not in harmony with 
the Park Commission Plans. 

In 1908 the President, recognizing this condition, appointed the 
Fine Arts Council (executive order 1010) and this council reported 
in favor of placing a projected Lincoln Memorial on the Mall, in keep- 
ing with the Park Commission Plans, and through the efforts of this 
Council the bill to place a projected Lincoln Memorial at the Union 
Station, a severe divergence from the Park Commission Plans was de- 
feated. 

In 1910, the Committee of One Hundred on the Development of 
Washington was organized by authority of the Washington, D. C, 
Chamber of Commerce. 

In 1910 Congress considered it wise to create a National Com- 
mission of Fine Arts (a commission that gives its time to the 
Government gratis) and appropriated $10,000 a year for its use. 
Every decision rendered by this Commission has been in keeping -with 
the Park Commission Plans. 

In 1911 Congress passed an act authorizing an appropriation of 
$2,000,000 for a Lincoln Memorial to be placed in the District of Co- 
lumbia and created the Lincoln Memorial Commission, which was to 
avail itself of the advice of the National Fine Arts Commission. 
(Public 346, Senate 9449, February, 1911.) 

During the years 1910 and 1911 the Washington Chamber of 
Commerce, the Washington Board of Trade, the Washington Federa- 
tion of Citizens' Associations and fourteen individual citizens' associa- 
tions passed resolutions indorsing the Park Commission Plans, and the 
Lincoln Memorial site on the Mall in keeping with the plans, and reso- 
lutions favoring the site as indicated by the Park Commission Plans 
were adopted by over tzcro hundred local and national clubs, civic, 
municipal, patriotic, historical, architectural, fine arts, landscape, and 
engineering organizations, and societies throughout the country, and 
the leading business organizations of Rhode Island, Maryland, Vir- 
ginia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Ohio, Texas, California, 
Colorado, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Dakota, Michigan, Iowa, Ken- 
tucky, New York, Missouri and Pennsylvania. 

1912. On December the fourth, after many meetings and 
examining many plans, schemes and suggestions, such as roadways, 
etc., the Lincoln Memorial Commission, composed of President Taft, 



Speaker Clark, Representatives McCall and Cannon and Senators Cul- 
lom, Wetmore and Martin, and Col. Cosby as executive officer, recom- 
mended to Congress that the Lincoln Memorial be placed in tlie_ Dis- 
trict of Columbia on the Mall, in keeping with the Park Commission 
Plan^. 

On December the 13th, 1912, the Senate approved the findmgs 
of the Lincoln Memorial Commission. 

1913. An executive order was issued (Dec. 28, 1913) that all 
Federal structures in the District of Columbia be referred to The 
National Commission of Fine Arts before final action. 

IN SPITE OF THIS. 

In spite of the fact that it has been proven again and again that 
with few exceptions business, civic, architectural and artistic America 
are a unit that the Washington, Jefferson, L'Enfant, and, in principle, 
the Park Commission Plans are the best iot the future of the Nation's 
Capital, there are constant and persistent efforts made to materially 
change these plans; no more glaring example of this can be found 
than the attempt that was made to divert the $2,000,000 appropriated 
by Congress for a Lincoln Memorial in the District of Columbia to a 
roadway outside of the District of Columbia. (Hearing Library Com- 
mittee, H. R. 13045, 1912.) 

1915. In spite of this the Treasury Department let a contract for 
a Government Power Plant near the center of our most important 
Park System (December 24, 1915). 

1916. In spite of the executive order (Nov. 28, 1913) this most 
important matter was not submitted to the National Fine Arts Commis- 
sion imtil January 14, 1916, twenty-one days after contract was let. 
"The Commission strongly disapproves the plans of this structure, 
and views with grave anxiety the location of any such plant on this 
site." (January 26, 1916.) 

A resolution was introduced in the Senate, askmg for a recon- 
sideration of the power plant building and site. (S. J. Resolution 92, 
January 29, 1916.) 

Conditions of this nature in 1910 brought mto life the Committee 
of One Hundred on the Development of Washington, a permanent 
committee, a national committee, and in its truest sense a vigilance 
committee, jealous for the future of Washington, positive as to the 
spirit of the Park Commission Plans. 

It is the desire of this committee, as far as possible, to inform the 
people of the country, who own and take such pride in their Capital, 
and their representatives in Congress (who for a hundred years have 
been, and for the centuries to come will be, considerate for it), on 
wliat the Park Commission Plans mean to future Washington so they 
can think and vote understandingly. 

Information in detail on the Park Commission Plans, slides and 
suggestions for lectures, photographs and half tones showing present 
and future Washington, news ^f or publications and resolutions to be 
adopted by organizations will be furnished upon request by addressing 

Glenn Brown, Chairman, 
The Committee of One Hundred on the Development of Washington, 
806 17th Street, N. W., Washington, D. C. 



The Committee of One Hundred 
ON THE Development of Washington. 



Organized 1910 



SOLE OBJECT OF COMMITTEE: 

Preservation of plans for the Nation's Capital as approved by 
George Washington in 1789 and as extended by the Park Commis- 
sion in 1902. 



Glenn Brown, Chairman 

Wm. E. Shannon, Vice-Chairman 

John L. Weaver, Treasurer 

Milton E. Ailes 

John Barrett 

Paul W. Bartlett ^ 

Mrs. Paul W. Bartlett 

Alexander Graham Bell 

Charles J. Bell 

Clifford K. Berryman 

Miss Mabel Boardman 

William W. Bride 

Bedford Brown, IV 

Daniel J. Callahan 

C. C. Calhoun 

Frank G. Carpenter 

Mitchell Carroll 

Fred G. Coldren 

Edward F. Colliday 

Charles I. Corby 

William S. Corby 

J. Harry Covington 

A. Crawford 

Andrew Wright Crawford 

Grosvenor Dawe 

Frederic A. Delano 

Alphonsus J. Dolon 

John Dolph 

Edward H. Droop 

John Joy Edson 

Dwight L. Elmendorf 

Fred A. Emery 

Wm. Phelps Eno 

Wm. Corcoran Eustis 

Wm. John Eynon 

Henry P. Fairbanks 

Mrs. Austin Gallagher 

Julius Garfinkle 

Merrill E. Gates 

Cass Gilbert 

Samuel Gompers 

Edward C. Graham 

Henry S. Graves 

Thomas Grant 

Gilbert H. Grosvenor 

Wm. F. Gude 

Frank W. Hack3t477-l7d 

Alfred Harding Lq^ ^^ 

George W. Harris 

F. J. Haskin 

David Jayne Hill 



Archibald Hopkins 
Mrs. Archibald Hopkins 
J. Franklin Jameson 
Hennen Jennings 
Holcombe G. Johnson 
W. V. Judson 
Louis Kann 

D. J. Kaufman 
John B. Earner 
Francis E. Leupp 
James Rush Marshall 
John G. McGrath 
Miss Leila Mechlin 

E. P. Mertz 
C. R. Miller 

James Dudley Morgan 
Charles D. Norton 
Frank B. Noyes 
Theodore W. Noyes 
Robert Lee O'Brien 
James F. Oyster 
Thomas Nelson Page 
Henry C. Perkins 
John Poole 
Henry Kirke Porter 
Wallace Radcliffe 
Miss Janet Richards 
Charles W. Richardson 
Mrs. Charles W. Richardson 

A. G. Robinson 
Cuno H. Rudolph 
William T. Russell 

B. Francis Saul 
Thomas J. Shahan 
James Sharp 
Henry C. Sheridan 
Abram Simon 
Wendell Philip Stafford 
William J. Starr 
Harry C. C. Stiles 
Charles H. Stockton 

Mrs. Wm. Gumming Story 
Frank Sutton 
George Oakley Totten 
John Van Schaick, Jr. 
Charies D. Walcott " 
Richard R. Watrous 
Henry White 
Simon Wolf 
A. S. Worthington 



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